Allston Labs vs Outreach.
Outreach is the enterprise sales engagement platform — the platform Salesforce shops default to for 50+ rep SDR teams. Allston Labs is the forward-deployed engineering layer underneath: we don't sell software, we operate the infrastructure and the motion end-to-end.
Outreach is a tool. You bring an SDR team, an admin to configure sequences, a data team to manage enrichment, and a deliverability owner to keep sending domains healthy. Allston Labs brings all of that to you as a service — engineers in your Slack, owning outcome metrics not seat counts.
What changes between them.
You have an existing SDR team of 15+, Salesforce as your CRM, and a clear ICP. The team can operate the platform and just needs the rails. The buying motion is mature; Outreach is the standard tool. ACV is high enough ($50K+) to absorb seat costs across the team.
You're under 50 employees, pre or just post-PMF, and the question is not 'which platform do my SDRs use' but 'do I even have an SDR motion yet'. You don't have a deliverability owner. You need pipeline by the end of the quarter, not a year-long platform rollout.
What you have to operate either way.
Regardless of which platform you choose, the underlying infrastructure is yours to operate. These guides explain it.
Cold email — the complete setup reference
14 chapters covering the authentication and deliverability stack any platform expects you to operate yourself.
LinkedIn outreach — the infrastructure reference
8 chapters on multi-account architecture, residential proxies, and the messaging surfaces that work.
Cold copy and campaign architecture
Principles, sequences, CTAs, multi-channel. The copy layer is what determines reply rates regardless of platform.
Not sure which fits?
We'll tell you straight when Outreach or another platform is the right answer — and when we are.
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